Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Ninety: Waiting to Hear

Metinee Pakorn heard nothing else but her husband's heartbeat. She felt nothing else but her husband's warmth. She exulted in her success. She was, finally, back in her husband's arms. He was holding her tight to him, and she could feel his strength pouring into her.

She knew she had missed him, but she hadn't realized how much. She knew that she missed talking to him and hearing his opinions about her projects. She had missed the time after dinner when the servants retreated, and it was just them, sometimes listening to music, sometimes listening to one of their favorite mystery podcasts, sometimes, reading. Well, he read, and she watched. Watched him.

But now her body told her, too, how much she had physically missed him. His warmth, his soothing nature, the way he made her feel calm and protected and strong and complete. She hadn't been sleeping well without having him beside her in bed. But now, in his arms, she relaxed and let go. She had struggled at first, thinking it was one of those other people at this party of celebration to which, despite all her work, she had not even been invited. She didn't care about any of these other people—only Channarong, and she was back in his arms.

Metinee hadn't planned to come to the party until her personal secretary managed to give her the completed guest list. She had assumed that Phon would invite his low life friends like he would to any of his other parties, but then she heard that Channarong was involved in the planning, and that Team 2 (she refused to acknowledge that they were NMR now) was the reason for the party. She wondered whether this meant that Channarong was truly giving up on Tul ever coming back.

Still, even then, she wasn't going to try to attend. She believed that Channarong would be polite and warm as always. Maybe he would soften Tul up, and eventually Tul would realize—by comparing his father to Phon's "friends"—that he really wanted to come back to Shilapath. Since Tul said he didn't want to take over CEO position of Shilapth once his father was in charge of Pakorn Group, she would keep him to his word and allow him to hold the place until Plustor came back from whatever it was he needed to do. Channaorng didn't talk to her about Plustor. All she knew was that he had left the country under some sort of ruse about studying abroad. It was probably better in the long run to have him gone for a while.

No, she didn't even plan to go to the party after the divorce papers were delivered to her house. Metinee received her divorce papers the Friday after the scene with Max Nattapol in her office just like Channarong said she would. Even though there was a part of her that hadn't really believed that divorce was a serious threat, she was still waiting with a group of lawyers. When the packet arrived at the house—she was not going to have this meeting at work—she looked at the papers briefly and then left them with her lawyers. She didn't need to see the agreement or what Channarong was or was not giving her. She only needed to see his signature with her own eyes. Nothing less was going to make her believe that this was really happening.

And yet, when she heard about Phon's party, she still hadn't thought about showing up. Not even when she saw her personal secretary waiting outside of her home office.

"Do you have the report I asked for?" Metinee asked her.

The woman nodded and handed her a folder and stepped back. The folder was about Apasiri Nitibohn. Something that Nattapol had said to her had stuck with her: the idea that Apasiri did not want Channarong. That, in fact, not only was she not interested in the idea but was actually repulsed by it. Metinee had been so sure that Apasiri would try to contact her husband, but the woman hadn't. Metinee then figured that Apasiri was just biding her time or that Channarong contacted her himself. She knew that he had greeted her at Pongpat's funeral only to be politely rebuffed. This new report showed that her husband had reached out to Apasiri again through letter and through messenger a couple of times, but that Apasiri had only responded once—thanking him for his concern but asking him to not even acknowledge her if they met on the street.